“Before” or “prior”

-The novel “Two Years Before the Mast” is about a man who spent two years in the section of the ship in front of the mast. This is the same way that, when you look at a map, Ventura is before Santa Barbara; and the same way that we might stand before an audience; and the same way that the nursery rhyme says “wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the King”.

-An action must be before a reaction (reacting is a way of coming after) but the action and the reaction occur at the same time.

-Before is said of events in time after it is said of things with a certain position. Even when time and motion are seen together, we understand the order of extension first. People can doubt time, some doubt motion, no one has doubted location yet.

-Causality is self evident as a way of being before or prior. It has this priority in virtue of being act as opposed to potency. For Aristotle, “act” is the take it or leave it, either-you-get-it-or-you-don’t first principle of his whole thought.